___ years ago

Before Facebook and Twitter, there was the blog meme. ‘Memba those?

You went around to hundreds, okay, tens of blogs and read those bloggers’ versions of the moment’s hot post. Neil Kramer‘s Great Interview Experiment is a better mutation of an interview meme that was going around a few years ago and—regardless of my infamous contempt of them—memes were an open pipeline for discovering new blogs and new friends.

Sometimes, I would participate without complaint if I found it interesting. I’m still painstakingly collecting my sarcasticfringe.com archives from the Internet Wayback Machine, and I’m missing more than a few good posts. Q was still on Blogger when we had fun with this one, so it survived our blogging hiatus. I read his yesterday for the first time in three years, had a few giggles and decided to recreate it here.

Instead of a copy/paste or an import, I’m just gonna start over.

25 years ago, I was 17 years old, a senior in high school with my senior prom coming up in less than two weeks. I don’t wanna talk about that.

20 years ago, I was 22 years old, believing a false rumor that if I were six or less credits away from graduating, I could participate in my school’s commencement ceremony on Mother’s Day. Found out nearly too late, certainly after my mom and little sister had their plane tickets and their hotel room booked, the rumor was baseless. If you’ve known me for more than a week, you know I wiggled my way into the ceremonies. Sat right between my friends Stephanie and Haywood. Took photos in my cap and gown. Went to summer school. Don’t wanna talk about that either.

15 years ago, I was 27 years old and on this day sat in a chair next to my infant daughter’s bed in PICU, watching her sleep. I thought her little left arm mechanically moving from head to hip to head to hip was one of those baby twitches I’d read about in my baby books. The nurse contradicted me flatly: she’s having a stroke. Then went back to her newspaper.

10 years ago, I was 32 years old and working as the abstinence education outreach director for a crisis pregnancy center. No comment. Heh. Hey there, Jon Alex!

5 years ago, I was 37 years old and working as a technical editor on the media services contract for the space center, sexual activity details neither required nor requested by my employer.

1 year ago, I was 41 years old and the mother of a nine-day-old baby.  Hey there, Ehren!

This year, I’ve got fancy pants and plans to match, but will probably have to wait for them to go on 75% off clearance.

Links to your ____ years ago posts in comments…